Ten back into bat with the CLT20

Early Sunday morning Network Ten begins its exclusive live coverage of the Karbonn Smart Champions League Twenty20 from India. The first match begins at 12:30am AEST live on ONE HD.

TEN and ONE will broadcast 23 matches of the two-week tournament live and will also have streaming coverage available on www.tensport.com.au. Australian teams will feature in the tournament with the Perth Scorchers and the Brisbane Heat battling against the best T20 sides in the world for a prize pool of $6 million.

This is not the first time that Ten has broadcast the CLT20, having previously been the broadcaster when it held Indian Premier League rights for the Australian market. In recent times Fox Sports has been the Australian CLT20 broadcaster.

The deal to cover the Indian-based tournament evidences Ten’s newfound commitment to cricket, having earlier this year signed a deal with Cricket Australia to be the exclusive Australian broadcaster of the KFC T20 Big Bash League.

TEN Head of Sport, David Barham, said of the new CLT20 broadcast rights deal:

“…we look forward to helping grow T20 cricket by showing games live and on free-to-air televisions for all Australians to enjoy.”

The deal was signed with the tournament’s host-broadcaster Star Sports (a 21st Century Fox company). It is unclear whether Ten will (at least for Brisbane Heat and Perth Scorchers matches) have its own TEN Sport overlay (like with its F1 coverage) or just take the Star Sports host feed.

The first match involving an Australian team is on Sunday evening (Australian time) with the Brisbane Heat facing off against Trinidad & Tobago from 8:30pm on ONE.

In other cricket broadcast news, Fox Sports has confirmed it will have live coverage of Australia’s limited overs tour of India, starting with coverage of a one-off T20 match on 11 October 2013.